That Night Again
by Jak Pickens
Summary: Bruce relives that night when he woke up to find Jeremiah Valeska holding his girlfriend at gunpoint (AU)


**That Night Again**

Bruce's eyes shot open and they started darting around the room, searching for the cause of the sound that'd awoken him.

Apparently, his sudden movement disturbed the girl sleeping next to him.

"Bruce?" Selina asked groggily. "What's wrong?"

Bruce didn't respond immediately, still feeling that there was something off. Maybe it was just the fear toxin he'd been exposed to earlier that day, or maybe it was just a bad dream. He wasn't sure.

Finally, seeing no immediate threat in the room, Bruce responded, "Nothing. Bad dream I guess."

"Jeremiah?" she asked, pulling her legs up underneath her so they were both sitting up in his bed. Bruce nodded in response. She sighed. "Why do you think he's so obsessed with you?" she asked, now fully awake.

He shook his head. "Jeremiah said that all it takes is one bad day to drive a person insane." Bruce told her. "I wonder if my parents dying made me a little insane. Maybe he sensed that. Maybe he wanted to bring it out."

"Well you proved him wrong," Selina assured him, placing her hand on top of his.

"To be fair," another voice announced from the shadows. Selina whirled around to find a gun lodged in her chest. Bruce froze, not wanting to set off their attacker. Jeremiah Valeska told Bruce in a cold, emotionless voice, "The night's not over yet."

A gunshot rang out.

Bruce watched Selina's lifeless corpse fall onto the bed.

Bruce went blind with rage. Jeremiah dropped the gun and Bruce tackled him. He started punching the psychopath in the throat and head, over and over, and then choked him until he went still.

"Bruce!" he heard a distant voice say.

He heard it, but he ignored it, too distracted by his hatred of Jeremiah to listen.

However, it kept repeating the same words over and over, "Bruce! Wake up! Bruce! WAKE UP!"

He shot up in bed, his breathing heavy and his body fully covered in sweat.

Next to him sat Selina Kyle, who lurched back when he suddenly came to. She pulled him into an embrace and started whispering in a soothing voice, "Shh, it's alright, B. Everything is alright. You're safe," she told him. "We're safe," she elaborated.

"J-Jeremiah," Bruce said shakily.

Selina shook her head. "Gordon got him, remember? He's gone, Bruce. He's gone and we're okay," she soothed.

Finally Bruce's breathing went back down to a normal pace. She let go of him. "Bad dream," Bruce told her.

"Again?" she asked. It'd been the third time that week that he'd had a nightmare. "What was this one about?"

"Jeremiah shooting…" Bruce trailed off.

Selina nodded. In their past year and half months together in Metropolis, that'd been one of his most reoccurring nightmares.

"What happened that time?" she asked him, rubbing his back and arms in a comforting manner.

"We were in bed, the night after the trap with Alfred, and he showed up," his breathing hitched and he paused.

"Go on," Selina urged him. She'd found that the more they'd spoken about his dreams, the easier it was for him to get passed them the next time.

"He shot you in the chest this time. I…I think you died."

"And then what?" Selina asked. She'd assumed that much, as most of his nightmares about that night typically started off like that, either with her being shot in the stomach or chest. What typically varied was what happened afterwards.

"I killed him," Bruce told her flatly. "I beat him to death with my bare hands, and he smiled at me as I did it…"

Selina nodded. "Bruce, Jeremiah is dead."

"I know," he responded. "I know, but…I'm just scared that he _isn't_. Jerome died and came back," he pointed out.

"But Jerome wasn't cremated like Jeremiah was," Selina told him. "He's gone, B. Besides, didn't we leave Gotham to get away from all of it?"

Bruce nodded. "I know, it's just…it looked so real."

Selina sat up next to him and threw her legs out over his lap. Granted, they were both naked so it was a bit awkward, but Bruce got the point.

"Bruce," Selina said flatly, "Jeremiah missed. He didn't hit my spine; the doctors just thought he did. They were just being cautious. You were there when we got the diagnosis."

"I know, Cat," he told her.

"Well then, why do you keep having that dream?" Selina asked. She knew she was being brutally blunt with him, that it wasn't his fault he kept having the dream. But she'd helped him get past a few other bad dreams he'd had, and she'd found that the only way to kill the weed was to dig up the roots.

Bruce shook his head. "I was so sure I'd lost you that night. It broke me, Cat."

"What do you mean?" Selina asked.

Bruce sighed. "When you were in surgery, I was called to the GCPD because Jeremiah wanted to talk to me. At the time, it'd looked like you were going to be crippled, if not worse, and he played on that in the interrogation." He shook his head, a few light tears forming in his eyes. "He called you so many things…he had no right to say any of them. I thought…" he sniffed and continued, "I thought that the only way to beat him was to let him win…"

"Let him win?" Selina asked.

"To make me kill him," Bruce elaborated.

Selina shook her head. "They said Gordon killed him in self-defense."

Bruce's face fell. "He won, Cat. I told the guards to leave, and they did, and then I strangled him with my bare hands. I killed him, Cat."

Her eyes were wide and she'd stopped stroking his back. "Oh," she whispered in a timid voice. "So, that's why you keep killing him in your dreams."

Bruce looked shocked at her bluntness. "Selina…I _killed_ him. I'm a killer now."

"Well that makes two of us," Selina pointed out. "Bruce, Gotham makes you do things that you'd never do anywhere else. It's in the air. It destroys you, piece by piece. That's why we left, remember? Because we wanted a second chance at life," she took his hand and placed it on her stomach where there was now a growing bulge. "A second chance at a family," she told him.

Bruce sighed, whatever fears and anxieties he had melting away at her words.

He was going to be a father in a couple of months.

He nodded. "Maybe you're right."

"I know I'm right," she responded with a smirk. "Do you want to kiss me?" she asked with a playful tone.

He smirked, remembering one of their first conversations back when they were only twelve and thirteen. Just two scared kids, trying to find their way in the hell that they'd called Gotham. He quoted his younger self saying, "No. Not because I don't want to, but I can't help but feel you have an ulterior motive. I don't think you would see me as a suitable romantic partner, so why would you want to kiss me, I don't know?"

She shook her head. "You think too much," and she kissed him. They were happy.

Somewhere in the Gotham morgue, a few stray ashes of what used to be Jeremiah Valeska turned over in the furnace.

 **A/N: Sorry this was so short, but I got the idea and just had to write it. This'll probably stay as a oneshot since I'm working on several big projects right now, but, if the demand is high enough, I'll consider writing a series on Bruce and Selina's life in Metropolis after leaving Gotham. Thanks for reading!**

 **Oh, and if it wasn't clear, in this AU Selina makes a full recovery, Bruce kills Jeremiah, Jeremiah is cremated, Bruce leaves Gotham with Selina on the boats, and Bruce and Selina move to Metropolis. However, since Jeremiah is dead, the bombs go off and Gotham is still declared a No Man's Land, just without their Dark Knight to protect them.**


End file.
